


Penance

by Racethewind_10



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 05:51:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Racethewind_10/pseuds/Racethewind_10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn’t how she ever imagined it. In all the stray fantasies that wandered through her undisciplined mind over the years Regina’s breathing never hitched in an effort to hold back tears, her lips weren’t red from being bitten by her own teeth and Emma’s penance was never so desperate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penance

**Author's Note:**

> Written in part for a tumblr gifset which I wanted to make smutty but their expressions were always too...something for just plain smut. Also written in response to spoilers from 4x01.

It started with [this gifset](http://3lzyx.tumblr.com/post/19836450831/swan-queen-smexy-times) 

* * *

 

The office is cold and hushed, shadows in the corners long and heavy, the night outside the windows pressing in. They’re alone in the room, alone in the building, maybe alone in the world for all the heavy silence around them. 

Emma isn’t quite sure how they got here, here to where the cold marble floor is unforgiving beneath her knees, where her fingertips brush the warm warm skin of Regina’s legs, where she licks suddenly dry lips and Regina’s knuckles go white where her fingers grip the arms of her chair. It should be ridiculous and perhaps it’s meant to be, god knows it’s staged. But Emma can still taste the aftermath of anger and hear bitter words that fall like blows on her ears, all the heavier for knowing they’re right and she deserves them. She can still feel the fading heat of challenge in her blood that Regina always  _always_  manages to draw out of her and Emma knows this is a dare, that Regina thinks she will back out, will break down, will prove herself - yet again - unworthy and weak. 

And maybe she is, maybe she is all those things and worse but the emotion in the dark eyes above her is too raw to just be angry, too soft to just be hatred. Regina is hurting again, she’s alone  _again_  and she’s lashing out, clinging to their old game of push and pull because it’s what they do and what she knows and Emma understands all too well the ease with which you fall into old patterns when you’re caught in a trap and bleeding. 

Which is why Emma’s fingers are steady as she brushes them over the arch of bone at Regina’s ankle, why her touch is tender as her palms slide up the back of a toned calf. She knows what Regina expects and she won’t, she can’t let her have it. Maybe this too is selfish, this driving need to  _give_  the woman sitting above her something, even if it’s only a few moments where it doesn’t hurt, even if they are fleeting, even if it’s only physical, even if all it does is assuage Emma’s guilt for a little while. 

This isn’t how she ever imagined it. In all the stray fantasies that wandered through her undisciplined mind over the years Regina’s breathing never hitched in an effort to hold back tears, her lips weren’t red from being bitten by her own teeth and Emma’s penance was never so desperate. 

But those dark eyes aren’t shining with just challenge and Regina’s chin trembles almost imperceptibly as she raises it, opens her legs in clear demand so Emma shifts, ignoring the protests of her knees to take her place as willing supplicant. 

In the chill air of the office Regina’s skin burns making difficult to soft, to be gentle and slow, not because Emma doesn’t care but because she wants so damn much. Regina is a flame she’s been drawn to from the moment a white door with brass numbers reading ‘108’ opened and she found herself face to face with Henry’s mother.  Even then, on the steps in front of the mansion on a warm night in an eerily sleepy little town there was a spark between them, a spark that roared quickly to a fire that has since burned across that town, across realms, through curses, consuming ancient evils. They’ve both felt it licking at their skin, leaving pain in its wake but this time, this time Regina was an innocent bystander. This time Emma stands unscathed while ash rains around Regina.

Emma can’t go back - she wouldn’t go back, a life saved is not a decision she will regret - but the price should have been hers to pay, not Regina’s.

Her touch is pittance compared to what Regina’s lost and Emma knows it, hates herself for it even as she presses soft soft kisses to the inside of Regina’s knees and carefully, slowly edges her hands up thighs that shift and tense to ease the fabric of Regina’s skirt around her waist. She has nothing that can make up for what Regina has paid but she’ll give anyway. With the careful slide of silk as she slips Regina’s underwear from her legs, with the slow path of her lips along the satin skin of Regina’s inner thighs, with a firm, sure grip on Regina’s hips that pulls her to the edge of the chair Emma offers up empty meager pleasure – and Regina accepts. 

Slowly at first but gradually, gradually Regina’s spine softens and her muscles go slack, body falling backwards into the support of the chair. The long line of her neck twists as she rolls her head back and forth, spilling sable hair over the leather as her chest rises and falls in a broken staccato rhythm. Emma’s hands tighten their grip around straining thighs as she stops teasing and God but Regina is hot and wet and the sounds she makes as Emma’s tongue parts her, tastes her, pushes into her, the sounds that fall from her are as addictive as the feeling of hot slick flesh against Emma’s mouth. 

There is a rhythm, a pattern to arousal that’s different for each person. That whole rom com crap about falling into bed with someone and having amazing sex is usually total crap. It takes practices to get good at other people, to become compatible.

Somehow, Emma isn’t even a little surprised at how easily she can read Regina’s body. Maybe it’s just how well Emma knows her, or maybe it’s just how gloriously responsive Regina is. Lave her tongue across a swollen clit and she’ll hiss and arch, suck gently and she’ll whimper and try to press deeper into Emma’s mouth, part her labia with a slow swipe of tongue and she’ll buck her hips upward, hands tightening on the armrests.  Her face is flushed, lips parted and tendrils of hair clinging to her cheeks and Emma wants to cry because she’s beautiful like this. She’s beautiful but it won’t last and when it’s over those dark dark eyes will go distant and cold, when it’s over Regina will pull away from Emma, will pull away from everyone and Emma can’t bear to think of that so she eases back, takes her mouth away, turns to sucks a bruise on the inside of Regina’s thigh and vows to make this last as long as she possibly can. 

She tries to be slow, to be patient but Emma is weak. She’s weak and selfish and she can’t resist the urge to touch, to caress her fingertips over that slick flesh, to ease them inside Regina and stroke wet hot silk and feel Regina’s body tighten around her. She is weak and selfish and all she can offer in recompense is to give in and obey when Regina breathlessly demands ‘more’.

Emma can’t look when Regina comes. Her eyes are shut too tightly, body folded awkwardly as she concentrates on her mouth and her fingers and the ripple, the wave of release that rolls through Regina’s muscles almost catches her off guard. It’s probably fitting that she doesn’t know, that she’ll never have the image of what Regina looks like in that moment in her mind because she doesn’t deserve it.

If the backs of Emma’s eyes sting with tears of frustration and longing well - that’s part of her price to pay as well. 

She eases Regina down slowly, gentling the thrusts of her fingers and dropping soft kisses over thighs that still tremble but Emma can sense the end, knows it’s only a matter of moments before Regina collects herself enough to shove her away so she takes her time, draws out these last precious seconds, eyes craving every last fraction of a second of the way Regina looks now, sated and slumped and utterly wrecked and she looks and looks until its suddenly hard to swallow past the lump in her throat and Emma drops her gaze. 

Emma feels more than sees the instant reality crashes back in, memory and awareness and sadness falling over Regina like a curtain. They both flinch. Emma takes her hand away, wipes it on her jeans and tries to ignore the way her chest hurts so much more than her knees, the way her arms want to reach out and pull Regina to her, the way her throat closes so tightly even though she wants to say something, anything that will fix this, will make it  _right_.  She wants and wants and none of it means a damn thing because there aren’t enough words in the world to do that so she stands and turns away, giving Regina the illusion of privacy to gather herself. 

The sob makes her spin back around.

Emma expected angry words or tired dismissal, she expected scathing remarks or stony silence but instead there is a sob, cut off but echoing harshly against the walls. Emma moves before she can think, before her brain manages to deliver the message that kneeling and pulling Regina to her is probably a bad idea right now. It is, it is a bad idea and Regina fights, but not like a witch or a queen or a mayor, she fights like a woman broken, like someone who needs to lash out but doesn’t want to be let go. Her fists against Emma’s chest are weak, clumsy, not even an fraction of the strength Emma knows she can summon so Emma just pulls her closer, pulls her off the chair and into her lap, buries her nose in Regina’s hair and whispers ‘ _I’m sorry_ ,’ over and over again while Regina cries, whispers it until her throat is hoarse and Regina quiets, till the breath against her neck is even and soft. 

They sit that way for a long time. Long enough for Emma’s voice to give out. Long enough her back hurts and her legs are going numb.

"I know," it’s so quiet Emma almost misses it, takes a long moment for her to understand but when she does. 

When she does she pulls back and her heart, which was already somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach, plummets right through the floor at the sight of red-rimmed dark eyes, of Regina’s too-pale skin with bright blotchy spots of color on her cheeks and tear tracks that curve to her chin. 

"It still hurts," Regina whispers, voice rasping and chipped. She doesn’t pull away though and Emma continues to smooth her fingers up and down the line of Regina’s spine. 

"I know," she replies. 

"What do I do now?" she isn’t looking at Emma, isn’t really asking Emma but this, this Emma can answer, this she can do. 

"Now you let me take you home. You take a stupidly long hot bubble bath and you let me and Henry make you dinner and the kid can tell you all my embarrassing stories from New York and you can point out all my inadequacies and I won’t say a word in protest.” 

Regina gives a soft huff that’s half sigh, half bitter laugh and closes her eyes, but she still hasn’t pulled away and Emma is trying so so hard not to hope, because Regina broken and hurting and weak is so abhorrent to her now but if there is even the slightest change that Regina will let her in, will let her stay and help for once, then Emma wants it, wants to be the one to show Regina she can smile again, can laugh again, even if it’s just at Emma’s screw ups. She wants to be there when the shadows start to fade from those beautiful dark eyes and they warm like stained glass in the afternoon sun. She wants to see Regina and Henry continue to heal, finally putting the hurt of the last few years behind them. 

And maybe Emma is weaker and more of a failure than she thought or maybe she’s just a really slow learner because she realizes this complicated tangle of want isn’t new, that it’s been there, lodged between her ribs and under her heart for some time now, maybe even before Neverland…

But when and how aren’t important. Not when Regina is still and quiet and small in her arms, with her shoulders curled inward and her nose running. Not when the road ahead to anywhere remotely resembling happiness is going to be long and difficult. Not when this peace between them is so tentative and fragile. 

Regina takes a breath, slow and unsteady and Emma braces, she braces for the rejection, for the two steps backward, for yet another failure under her belt. She braces like she’s expecting a blow - 

"All right," Regina breathes out, sagging even further. 

Emma blinks, not quite believing what she just heard. 

"Regina," 

"I said all right, Miss Swan," Regina replies and Emma has to work so so hard not to smile, not to laugh and tighten her arms in a hug because that tone, those words. They’re weak and brittle and a shoddy facsimile of what Regina can normally deliver but they’re stupidly reassuring all the same, like a flickering light at the end of a very dark tunnel that may not be the end but at least Emma is sure it’s not a train coming. 

Emma doesn’t reply, just carefully stands up, helping Regina until the other woman can straighten and wipe at her face with a shaky hand. They’re still close, Emma’s hands on Regina’s arms as the masks fall back into place and Emma wants to sigh. The transformation isn’t complete though, maybe never again. It’s not just the mascara smudges on her cheeks or the way Regina’s hair is mussed, it’s that Emma’s seen too much, seen too deep inside the heart of the woman standing in front of her to ever believe the facade again. Emma knows how deeply she loves and how desperately she hurts, knows that Regina is far far from okay. But she’s still standing and that’s something. 

There’s an awkward moment where Emma finds Regina’s underwear and hands it back and Regina walks to her desk and retrieves a tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose, but when Emma opens the door for her Regina just nods carefully, walks through, turns to wait. 

They walk side by side, silent but close and Regina makes good on her promise. She lets Emma take her home where Henry is waiting with a hug that lasts and lasts, that makes her smile with only a little pain, home where she takes a hot bath, where Emma and Henry fix dinner…well they grab dinner from Granny’s but that counts and if Regina barely eats, she at least sits at the table with them and listens to Henry who is indeed far too happy to tell all of Emma’s embarrassing stories.

That night, after Henry has dried the dishes and hugged his mom twice and gone to bed, Emma walks toward the door when a soft ‘Thank you,’ makes her pause. She turns to look at Regina, face scrubbed clean of makeup, wearing worn jeans and a plain, long sleeved top with her feet bare. She looks small and tired but her eyes, her eyes are clear, the sadness pulling at the corners of her mouth more weary resignation than all-consuming grief. It’s enough. For now. 

"Don’t," Emma replies quietly. "Not yet." She holds Regina’s gaze until the other woman nods, just a little. 

"Good night, Regina." 

"Good night, Miss Swan." 

Emma locks the door behind her and walks down the steps to her bug. She’s tired and sore and her heart still hurts but under it all, under it all is the tiniest glow of hope at a step taken in the right direction.

 

Fin


End file.
